DING!
[Quest Complete – Serve 5 Unique Customers]
[Reward Unlocked: Café Expansion – Reading Nook]
[Installation in progress… Please stand clear of the northeast wall.]
The café gave a full-body shiver, like it had just stretched after a long nap. Talia nearly dropped the tea tray in her hands as the northeast wall vibrated. The shelves shifted aside, the floorboards slid forward like puzzle pieces rearranging themselves, and a new space appeared where there had only been smooth plaster a second ago.
Books flew in from nowhere, lining themselves up in newly formed shelves. A bay window shimmered into place, already glowing with soft morning light. Plush velvet chairs unfurled like blooming flowers. A teapot on one side table poured itself a sample cup just to test the air. The whole space smelled like cinnamon, old paper, and faint electricity.
Talia blinked. "That wasn't there before."
"It was waiting," the white cat said from the counter, grooming its paw. "The café just needed an excuse."
Kai gasped so hard he hiccupped. "It has a book fort area!"
G2 twirled through the air in excitement, leaving a trail of sugar sparkle behind her. She zipped around the nook and perched on top of a floating stack of cookbooks like a tiny queen.
Jasper stood at the edge of the space, eyes wide and slightly teary. "Reading nook. Oh no. I'm emotionally compromised."
"You're also on boiler descaling duty," Talia said, patting his shoulder.
Across the room, Rain leaned against the wall. She wore a borrowed grey cardigan that the café had produced just for her, softly lined with invisible warding runes. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes scanned the new nook with sharp awareness.
"Does the building remodel itself often?" she asked.
"Only when we complete a quest," Talia replied.
The cat narrowed its eyes. "Or on Tuesdays."
---
Morning Rush...
By midmorning, the café was bustling. The new reading nook had a gravitational pull stronger than most minor planets.
A group of witch university students arrived first. They claimed the big corner sofa and immediately started arguing about something called "entropic verb conjugation." They ordered four matcha lattes and a single extra-large cinnamon bun to "absorb passive hex residue."
An older gentleman wandered in next, slow and calm. He wore a threadbare bowler hat and smelled faintly of pipe smoke and lemon polish. He settled into a wingback chair, opened a copy of Pirates of the Fourth Dimension, and chuckled like he already knew the ending.
Two schoolchildren came in with backpacks and curiosity. They discovered a picture book that changed its illustrations every time they touched a page. They ordered hot chocolate topped with clouds of whipped cream and marshmallows in the shape of smiling moons.
The café filled with a gentle, layered warmth : voices, laughter, the soft rustle of pages turning.
Talia's system pinged happily.
[Auto-Cleanse: Complete]
[Comfort Aura: Active]
[Customer Emotional Level: Content +37%]
She breathed it in. The peace. The busy stillness of a place doing exactly what it was meant to do and the rare items given to her as payment for the refreshing beverages, which she transferred to her inventory.
---
Jasper had climbed the library ladder and was now rearranging books according to a classification system that seemed to be based on "how much chaos they caused if read aloud."
Xander sat near the bay window, sipping black coffee and reading an old paperback mystery. He had tucked two throwing knives into the book's spine. No one commented.
Rain, curious but guarded, wandered into the nook and ran her fingers along the edges of the window. The glass pulsed faintly under her touch, holding back external noise and amplifying inner warmth. She nodded, once, like approving a spell only she could read.
Kai was lying on the floor with G2 perched proudly on his head. Around him, he'd built a tiny spoon fortress using sugar cubes as battlements. He was humming quietly to himself, every so often asking G2 for military advice.
Talia watched them all and smiled.
For the first time since the fog beast, it really felt like home again.
---
Evening...
By sunset, the café had slowed again. Customers drifted out with sleepy smiles and borrowed books. Kai was asleep under a blanket, G2 tucked into the crook of his arm like a cinnamon-glazed duckling.
Talia cleaned the last mug, flipped the "Open" sign to "Closed," and stretched behind the counter.
She looked toward the reading nook.
Jasper was still in the same spot, deeply invested in The Encyclopedia of Mistakes That Changed the World. Xander had fallen asleep with his book over his eyes. The cat dozed by the window, tail twitching like it was dreaming of mice made of punctuation.
Rain stood quietly beside the new bookshelf, one hand resting on the blank journal.
"It's beautiful," she said.
"It is," Talia agreed. "But beautiful places tend to attract trouble."
As if on cue, the café shuddered.
Not the sleepy, happy kind. This one was sharp. Tense. Like a stomach cramping before bad news.
Then, the lights flickered.
DING!
[System Alert: Critical Resource Shortage Detected]
[Inventory Status: Has been empty of ingredients for a while. You can't only have rare items in your inventory, it is meant for other things too.]
[Ingredient Reserves: 0%]
[Emergency Café Protocol Initiated]
The fireplace hissed. The teapots on the shelves squealed. A nervous rattle ran through the floorboards.
Talia's HUD began flashing like a strobe light. One message scrolled across her vision, burning bright yellow.
> WARNING: YOU HAVE RUN OUT OF ALL BASE INGREDIENTS.
NO MILK. NO BEANS. NOT EVEN SUGAR.
NOT EVEN SALT.
THIS IS A CATASTROPHE.
The cat sat up sharply on the windowsill, fur puffed and glowing faintly. Its eyes met Talia's.
"Don't panic," it said, tail lashing. "But the café is about to do something... very stupid."
Before Talia could even ask what that meant, a new pop-up appeared in front of her.
> [New Quest: Restock the Essentials]
Objective: Refill your ingredient inventory
Current Inventory: 0 Items
Quest Type: Mandatory (Survival)
Reward: Ingredient Generator Charm (Creates 1 random item daily) + Permanent Café Storage Upgrade
Time Limit: Now.
Then another notification flashed:
> [Preparing Dimensional Exit – Loading Extraction Sequence]
All café residents will be temporarily ejected for supply retrieval.
Talia's mouth dropped open. "Wait, what do you mean 'ejected'?"
The café gave one final creaking groan.
The door locked itself.
The windows slammed shut.
The ceiling above the reading nook opened into glowing gold light.
A wind, warm and full of lavender static, swept through the room.
Kai bolted awake. "Why is the spoon fort vibrating?!"
Rain's journal flapped its covers in panic.
Jasper was halfway through highlighting a sentence and looked up. "Talia, what's happening?"
Even Xander sat upright, blinking sleep from his eyes. "Are we under attack?"
"No," Talia said slowly. "The café is... sending us on a shopping trip."
And with that, the floor dropped.
All of it.
---
One moment they were standing on polished hardwood and cozy rugs.
The next, the entire group landed in a patch of overgrown grass in the middle of an unfamiliar world.
Rain hit the ground first and rolled instinctively. Xander followed, already checking for threats. Jasper landed in a flailing heap, clutching a spoon like a talisman. Kai landed face-down in a bed of moss. G2 hovered over him, dizzy but chirping.
Talia dropped last, landing on her feet like a startled cat.
The actual cat landed on her shoulder with a heavy sigh. "Well, that could have gone smoother."
They all looked around.
The sky was dim and orange, like it was stuck in permanent sunset. Ruins stretched in every direction — crumbling towers, broken carts, bits of 18th-century architecture lost in time. An old windmill creaked somewhere in the distance.
A smoky mist hung in the air, but it wasn't deadly. Just… old. Tired.
Jasper brushed moss out of his hair. "This looks like... the apocalypse. But with powdered wigs."
Rain raised an eyebrow. "What century are we in?"
Xander pulled a rusty pocket watch off a nearby skeleton. "Late 1700s, if this thing's still ticking."
Kai sat up. "Why does the end of the world look like a museum?"
"Because," said the cat, grooming its paw, "the café is dramatic."
Talia stared at her system.
[Apocalypse World – Timeline: Forgotten Empire Shard]
[Local Status: Hostile Environment / Ingredient-Rich Zone]
[Objective: Gather 10+ Magical or Mundane Ingredients]
Bonus: Trade with Surviving Vendors, Discover Hidden Recipes
[Inventory: Empty]
[Bag: Conjured] – You now have a magical tote bag with infinite space. Use wisely.
She sighed. "We have no supplies, no weapons, and no idea where the market is."
The cat yawned. "On the bright side, we get a new pantry upgrade when we survive this."
"Why did it have to through us out?" Jasper mumbled, pale.
"Just the usual," the cat said. "Wild apothecaries, time-eating rabbits, maybe a fungus market cult. Nothing serious."
Kai jumped to his feet, grinning. "I call dibs on the first shiny mushroom!"
"Absolutely not," Talia said.
"Too late," he replied, already running toward a patch of glowing blue moss.
Talia sighed again, louder this time.
Then she adjusted her apron, looked at her party, and said what every magical café owner dreads before grocery shopping in a collapsing world.
"Let's go find some eggs."